Kiss Each Other Clean

Painter. Father. Filmmaker. Beard grower. College professor. Writer and songsmith. Sam "Iron and Wine" Beam's story is an impressive one about a middle class boy who had a normal youth and excellent college-age career. Following grad school, Beam taught film and cinematography at one of the nation's better film schools, all along writing and self-recording barebones songs on a modest four track recorder. More recently, the closing track from Beam's third proper studio album, The Shepherd's Dog, titled "Flightless Bird, American Moth," played during the pivotal moment of a blockbuster film called Twilight. That very cinematic-sounding song (as many of Beam's works are, notch) is, I'd bet, the one that did it. And by "did it," I mean that it's the one that moved Iron and Wine from indie favorite to the Best Buy end cap circuit.

His songs also featured in Garden State, "House, M.D.," "The OC," "Friday Night Lights," "90210," "Grey's Anatomy" and so on, I suppose it was just a matter of time before the big boys (in this case, Warner Bros. Records, home to The Flaming Lips and Built to Spill) came with a bag of money and promises. Having started out as a simple singer/songwriter whose work brought to mind Elliott Smith and Nick Drake, Beam has progressed very much over the years, the result being Kiss Each Other Clean, an at-times huge sounding record that expands on the sonic palate of The Shepherd's Dog, a very good record in its own right. (Note: Beam did release an often incredible double compilation record called Around the Well in between the releases of Dog and Kiss.)